Marin Readers' Forum for Dec. 22

The Marin Environmental Housing Collaborative is a partnership of housing, environmental and social justice advocates.

We read the recent Marin Voice column by two former Sausalito mayors exposing the pending giveaway of a valuable housing opportunity site in their community.

Sausalito owns a half-interest in a vacant two-acre property on Butte Street zoned for housing. The property is listed in the city's year-old Housing Element as a site that could be developed to fulfill the community's Housing Element goals.

But in a move we can only call bait-and-switch, on Oct. 22, the City Council agreed to negotiate to deed the property to an open space trust.

It is bad faith to claim in the Housing Element that a parcel is available for housing, and then to take the property out of the inventory of available sites after the state has certified that the Housing Element has sufficient sites to meet the community's needs.

The Butte Street property is a good housing site. The city has a history of small, affordable infill projects such as Rotary Place and Rotary Village; similar housing could be built on Butte Street.

This property is a special opportunity, because the city has an undivided half-interest.

If the city is willing to give away its interest in the property, it should be donating to a housing provider, not an open space trust.

There is a shortage of land for housing, but no lack of open space in Marin County.

California and Marin County in particular had been in the forefront of marijuana reform, innovation and activism, until Proposition 19 kicked legalization to the curb by not only ignoring the rights of three generations of growers to contribute and profit from the industry they created, but by carpetbaggers, whose sweaty little ambitions were to be the next Jamie Dimon of pot.

Industry professionals throughout Marin saw Proposition 19 as a blatant smash and grab for their life's work.

The new California Cannabis Hemp Initiative goes a long way to rectify the harms done by Proposition 19, but what it cannot convey to those who risk life, limb and their right to walk in the sunlight is trust.

The current initiative is sadly underfunded and is looked at with skepticism by those who continue to take all the risks.

The stakes are high; cannabis has grown into a $110 billion a year cash-and-carry cottage industry, which should not come as a surprise to anyone living and working in Marin today.